RESEARCH ARTICLE

A hnRNPA2B1 agonist effectively inhibits HBV and SARS-CoV-2 omicron in vivo

  • Daming Zuo , 2,9 ,
  • Yu Chen 2 ,
  • Jian-piao Cai 4 ,
  • Hao-Yang Yuan 1 ,
  • Jun-Qi Wu 1 ,
  • Yue Yin 2 ,
  • Jing-Wen Xie 2 ,
  • Jing-Min Lin 2 ,
  • Jia Luo 1 ,
  • Yang Feng 1 ,
  • Long-Jiao Ge 3 ,
  • Jia Zhou 5 ,
  • Ronald J. Quinn 6 ,
  • San-Jun Zhao 7 ,
  • Xing Tong 3 ,
  • Dong-Yan Jin 8 ,
  • Shuofeng Yuan , 4 ,
  • Shao-Xing Dai , 3 ,
  • Min Xu , 1
Expand
  • 1. Center for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China
  • 2. Department of Medical Laboratory, School of Laboratory Medicine and Biotechnology, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
  • 3. State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research;Institute of Primate Translational Medicine, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China
  • 4. Department of Microbiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
  • 5. Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
  • 6. Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, Griffith University, Brisbane 4111, Australia
  • 7. School of Life Sciences, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming 650500, China
  • 8. School of Biomedical Sciences, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
  • 9. Microbiome Medicine Center, Department of Laboratory medicine, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China

Received date: 25 May 2022

Accepted date: 09 Jun 2022

Copyright

2022 The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Higher Education Press.

Abstract

The twenty-first century has already recorded more than ten major epidemics or pandemics of viral disease, including the devastating COVID-19. Novel effective antivirals with broad-spectrum coverage are urgently needed. Herein, we reported a novel broad-spectrum antiviral compound PAC5. Oral administration of PAC5 eliminated HBV cccDNA and reduced the large antigen load in distinct mouse models of HBV infection. Strikingly, oral administration of PAC5 in a hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 omicron (BA.1) infection significantly decreases viral loads and attenuates lung inflammation. Mechanistically, PAC5 binds to a pocket near Asp49 in the RNA recognition motif of hnRNPA2B1. PAC5-bound hnRNPA2B1 is extensively activated and translocated to the cytoplasm where it initiates the TBK1-IRF3 pathway, leading to the production of type I IFNs with antiviral activity. Our results indicate that PAC5 is a novel small-molecule agonist of hnRNPA2B1, which may have a role in dealing with emerging infectious diseases now and in the future.

Cite this article

Daming Zuo , Yu Chen , Jian-piao Cai , Hao-Yang Yuan , Jun-Qi Wu , Yue Yin , Jing-Wen Xie , Jing-Min Lin , Jia Luo , Yang Feng , Long-Jiao Ge , Jia Zhou , Ronald J. Quinn , San-Jun Zhao , Xing Tong , Dong-Yan Jin , Shuofeng Yuan , Shao-Xing Dai , Min Xu . A hnRNPA2B1 agonist effectively inhibits HBV and SARS-CoV-2 omicron in vivo[J]. Protein & Cell, 2023 , 14(1) : 37 -50 . DOI: 10.1093/procel/pwac027

1
Abedi MR, Dixon S, Guyon T, et al. Predicting COVID-19 vaccine efficacy from neutralizing antibody levels. medRxiv 2021: 1- 12.

2
Alarcon CR, Goodarzi H, Lee H, et al. HNRNPA2B1 is a mediator of m(6)A-dependent nuclear RNA processing events. Cell 2015; 162: 1299- 1308.

3
Amin OE, Colbeck EJ, Daffis S, et al. Therapeutic potential of TLR8 agonist GS-9688 (Selgantolimod) in chronic hepatitis B: remodeling of antiviral and regulatory mediators. Hepatology (Hoboken, NJ, U S) 2021; 74: 55- 71.

4
Beigel JH, Tomashek KM, Dodd LE, et al. Remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19-final report. N Engl J Med 2020; 383: 1813- 1826.

5
Chen SF, Zhou YQ, Chen YR, et al. fastp: An ultra-fast all-in-one FASTQ preprocessor. Bioinformatics 2018; 34: 884- 890.

6
Chiba S, Kiso M, Nakajima N, et al. Co-administration of favipiravir and the remdesivir metabolite GS-441524 effectively reduces SARS-CoV-2 replication in the lungs of the syrian hamster model. mBio, 2022; e0304421.

7
Daffis S, Balsitis S, Chamberlain J, et al. Toll-like receptor 8 agonist GS-9688 induces sustained efficacy in the woodchuck model of chronic hepatitis B. Hepatology (Hoboken, NJ, U S) 2021; 73: 53- 67.

8
Fanning Gregory C, Zoulim F, Hou J, et al. Therapeutic strategies for hepatitis B virus infection: towards a cure. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2019; 18: 827- 844.

9
Gardner BJ, Kilpatrick AM. Third doses of COVID-19 vaccines reduce infection and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and could prevent future surges in some populations. medRxiv 2021: 1- 24.

10
Gonzalez-Navajas JM, Lee J, David M, et al. Immunomodulatory functions of type I interferons. Nat Rev Immunol 2012; 12: 125- 135.

11
Gordon H, Ajamian L, Valiente-Echeverria F, et al. Depletion of hnRNP A2/B1 overrides the nuclear retention of the HIV-1 genomic RNA. RNA Biol 2013; 10: 1714- 1725.

12
Guo Q, Zhao Y, Li J, et al. Induction of alarmin S100A8/A9 mediates activation of aberrant neutrophils in the pathogenesis of COVID-19. Cell Host Microbe 2021; 29: 222- 235.

13
Kim D, Paggi JM, Park C, et al. Graph-based genome alignment and genotyping with HISAT2 and HISAT-genotype. Nat Biotechnol 2019; 37: 907- 915.

14
Le Guilloux V, Schmidtke P, Tuffery P. Fpocket: an open source platform for ligand pocket detection. BMC Bioinform 2009; 10: 168.

15
Ledford H. Can drugs reduce the risk of long COVID? What scientists know so far. Nature (London, U K) 2022; 604: 20- 21.

16
Lee JS, Shin EC. The type I interferon response in COVID-19: implications for treatment. Nat Rev Immunol 2020; 20: 585- 586.

17
Liao Y, Smyth GK, Shi W. featureCounts: an efficient general purpose program for assigning sequence reads to genomic features. Bioinformatics 2014; 30: 923- 930.

18
Liu Y, Shi SL. The roles of hnRNP A2/B1 in RNA biology and disease. Wiley Interdiscip Rev RNA 2021; 12: e1612.

19
McNab F, Mayer-Barber K, Sher A, et al. Type I interferons in infectious disease. Nat Rev Immunol 2015; 15: 87- 103.

20
Mueller U, Steinhoff U, Reis LFL, et al. Functional role of type I and type II interferons in antiviral defense. Science (Washington, DC) 1994; 264: 1918- 1921.

21
Newman DJ, Cragg GM. Natural products as sources of new drugs over the nearly four decades from 01/1981 to 09/2019. J Nat Prod 2020; 83: 770- 803.

22
Owen DR, Allerton CMN, Anderson AS, et al. An oral SARS-CoV-2 M-pro inhibitor clinical candidate for the treatment of COVID-19. Science 2021; 374: 1586- 1593.

23
Planas D, Saunders N, Maes P, et al. Considerable escape of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron to antibody neutralization. Nature 2022; 602: 671- 675.

24
Ritchie ME, Phipson B, Wu D, et al. limma powers differential expression analyses for RNA-sequencing and microarray studies. Nucleic Acids Res 2015; 43: e47.

25
Sadler AJ, Williams BRG. Interferon-inducible antiviral effectors. Nat Rev Immunol 2008; 8: 559- 568.

26
Schmidt A, Peters S, Knaus A, et al. TBK1 and TNFRSF13B mutations and an autoinflammatory disease in a child with lethal COVID-19. NPJ Genom Med 2021; 6: 55.

27
Sleigh A. Twenty-first century plague: the story of SARS. Nature 2005; 435: 886- 887.

28
Taft J, Markson M, Legarda D, et al. Human TBK1 deficiency leads to autoinflammation driven by TNF-induced cell death. Cell 2021; 184: 4447- 4463 e4420.

29
Tao KM, Tzou PL, Nouhin J, et al. The biological and clinical significance of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. Nat Rev Genet 2021; 22: 757- 773.

30
Trott O, Olson AJ. AutoDock Vina: improving the speed and accuracy of docking with a new scoring function, efficient optimization, and multithreading. J Comput Chem 2010; 31: 455- 461.

31
Villarroya-Beltri C, Gutierrez-Vazquez C, Sanchez-Cabo F, et al. Sumoylated hnRNPA2B1 controls the sorting of miRNAs into exosomes through binding to specific motifs. Nat Commun 2013; 4: 2980.

32
Wahl A, Gralinski LE, Johnson CE, et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection is effectively treated and prevented by EIDD-2801. Nature 2021; 591: 451- 457.

33
Wang L, Wen M, Cao X. Nuclear hnRNPA2B1 initiates and amplifies the innate immune response to DNA viruses. Science 2019; 365: 656- +.

34
Wu Y, Ma L, Zhuang Z, et al. Main protease of SARS-CoV-2 serves as a bifunctional molecule in restricting type I interferon antiviral signaling. Signal Transduct Target Ther 2020; 5: 221.

35
Wu B, Su S, Patil DP, et al. Molecular basis for the specific and multivariant recognitions of RNA substrates by human hnRNP A2/B1. Nat Commun 2018; 9: 420.

36
Xia H, Cao Z, Xie X, et al. Evasion of type I interferon by SARS-CoV-2. Cell Rep 2020b; 33: 108234.

37
Xia C, Tang W, Geng P, et al. Baicalin down-regulating hepatitis B virus transcription depends on the liver-specific HNF4α-HNF1α axis. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 2020a; 403: 115131.

38
Yang D, Liu LC, Zhu DM, et al. A mouse model for HBV immunotolerance and immunotherapy. Cell Mol Immunol 2014; 11: 71- 78.

39
Ying C, Li Y, Leung CH, et al. Unique antiviral mechanism discovered in anti-hepatitis B virus research with a natural product analogue. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2007; 104: 8526- 8531.

40
Yu G, Wang LG, Han Y, et al. clusterProfiler: an R package for comparing biological themes among gene clusters. OMICS 2012; 16: 284- 287.

41
Yuan S, Yin X, Meng X, et al. Clofazimine broadly inhibits coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2. Nature 2021; 593: 418- 423.

42
Zhang Q, Bastard P, Effort CHG, et al. Human genetic and immunological determinants of critical COVID-19 pneumonia. Nature(London, U K) 2022; 603: 587- 598.

43
Zhou P, Yang XL, Wang XG, et al. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature 2020; 579: 270- 273.

44
Zhou D, Chan JF, Zhou B, et al. Robust SARS-CoV-2 infection in nasal turbinates after treatment with systemic neutralizing antibodies. Cell Host Microbe 2021; 29: 551- 563 e555.

Outlines

/